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CHAPTER XXIII

TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS

“Well,” Mr. Wood began. “I
was brought up, as you all know, in the eastern part
of Maine, and we often used to go over into New Brunswick
for our sport. Moose were our best game.
Did you ever see one, Laura?”

“No, uncle,” she said.

“Well, when I was a boy there was no more beautiful
sight to me in the world than a moose with his dusky
hide, and long legs, and branching antlers, and shoulders
standing higher than a horse’s. Their legs
are so long that they can’t eat close to the
ground. They browse on the tops of plants, and
the tender shoots and leaves of trees. They walk
among the thick underbrush, carrying their horns adroitly
to prevent their catching in the branches, and they
step so well, and aim so true, that you’ll scarcely
hear a twig fall as they go.

“They’re a timid creature except at times.
Then they’ll attack with hoofs and antlers whatever
comes in their way. They hate mosquitoes, and
when they’re tormented by them it’s just
as well to be careful about approaching them.
Like all other creatures, the Lord has put into them
a wonderful amount of sense, and when a female moose
has her one or two fawns she goes into the deepest
part of the forest, or swims to islands in large lakes,
till they are able to look out for themselves.

“Well, we used to like to catch a moose, and
we had different ways of doing it. One way was
to snare them. We’ d make a loop in a rope
and hide it on the ground under the dead leaves in
one of their paths. This was connected with a
young sapling whose top was bent down. When the
moose stepped on the loop it would release the sapling,
and up it would bound, catching him by the leg.
These snares were always set deep in the woods, and
we couldn’t visit them very often. Sometimes
the moose would be there for days, raging and tearing
around, and scratching the skin off his legs.
That was cruel. I wouldn’t catch a moose
in that way now for a hundred dollars.

“Another way was to hunt them on snow shoes
with dogs. In February and March the snow was
deep, and would carry men and dogs. Moose don’t
go together in herds. In the summer they wander
about over the forest, and in the autumn they come
together in small groups, and select a hundred or
two of acres where there is plenty of heavy undergrowth,
and to which they usually confine themselves.
They do this so that their tracks won’t tell
their enemies where they are.

“Any of these places where there were several
moose we called a moose yard. We went through
the woods till we got on to the tracks of some of
the animals belonging to it, then the dogs smelled
them and went ahead to start them. If I shut
my eyes now I can see one of our moose hunts.
The moose running and plunging through the snow crust,
and occasionally rising up and striking at the dogs
that hang on to his bleeding flanks and legs.
The hunters’ rifles going crack, crack, crack,
sometimes killing or wounding dogs as well as moose.
That, too, was cruel.